Shopify Integrates USDC Payments, Friend.tech Activity Dries Up
Market Update
- After digesting Fed Chair Powell’s speech at Friday’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium over the weekend, traditional indices are rising, with both the SPY 0.14% and QQQ -0.07% gaining approximately 0.40% at the time of writing. In a busy week for economic data, investors will be eyeing the release of JOLTS, ADP employment, the PCE index, and non-farm payrolls to form an outlook on the labor market and inflation. Crypto markets are relatively flat, with BTC (+0.05%) remaining steady around $26k, and ETH (-0.38%) holding at $1,650. Retail investing and trading platform Robinhood is speculated to own a $3 billion Bitcoin wallet. The wallet has accumulated most of the 118k Bitcoin balance over the last few months, making it the third largest Bitcoin holder behind Binance and Bitfinex. Robinhood has not publicly confirmed if they are the wallet’s owner, but if so, it would mark significant exposure to crypto despite the platform reporting an 18% drop in crypto trading revenues in Q2.
- The e-commerce giant Shopify, has integrated USDC payments on its platform, allowing millions of businesses and customers to transact with crypto. The integration utilizes Solana Pay, a payments protocol built on the Solana network. Solana Pay eliminates the need for an intermediary, removing bank fees, chargebacks, and holding times while enabling direct settlement on-chain, making the pay process quicker and more efficient. The integration currently only supports USDC payments, but other token options will be added in the future. Additionally, the integration serves as a bridge to the crypto ecosystem, paving the way for e-commerce merchants to leverage the Web3 economy and offer novel products like NFT loyalty programs or token-gated services.
- After being praised last week as the next “big thing,” Friend.tech, the social network launched on Base, has seen a dramatic fall in daily fees. Last week, the platform’s daily fees peaked at roughly $1.7 million, exceeding that of Bitcoin and Uniswap, but have since declined to $161k, according to Defillama (as of 8.26). Transactions on the platform similarly fell, dropping over 90% from peak levels. The sharp decrease in activity has sparked debates on Twitter, with some pronouncing the platform as a flash in the pan. In contrast, others still believe the dApp will be a considerable asset in onboarding people to crypto as social media “influencers” join the platform. It is likely too soon to determine the dApp's fate, considering it’s still in its beta phase, but the potential for receiving a Friend.tech token airdrop may keep users active on the platform in the short term.
Source: Dune
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Optimism, the layer 2 protocol on top of Ethereum, has seen its price slide over the last three weeks following its peak right near $1.80 resistance as part of the existing six-month downtrend from February highs. Initially, the break of $1.50 was a minor warning of potential further consolidation, as this violated the support uptrend of the two-month rally from June lows. Following a minor retest of this pivot area, OP has turned back lower and has fallen for the last three of four trading sessions. Technically speaking, the area at $1.25-$1.30 will prove important on retests in the days ahead. To expect that OP has bottomed, this will need to get back up above last week's highs near $1.60. This would constitute the first real evidence of technical improvement which would turn its trend more positive. Upside resistance lies at $2.10, then $2.38 which eventually should be retested once OP can begin to stabilize.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of August 28, 2023 12:03 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $508B | $26,111 | ↓ -0.03% | ↑ 58% | |
 ETH | $198B | $1,649 | ↓ -0.33% | ↑ 38% | ↓ -20% |
 ADA | $9.3B | $0.2662 | ↑ 0.98% | ↑ 7.83% | ↓ -50% |
 DOGE | $8.9B | $0.0634 | ↑ 0.35% | ↓ -9.57% | ↓ -67% |
 SOL | $8.4B | $20.55 | ↓ -0.77% | ↑ 108% | ↑ 50% |
 DOT | $5.6B | $4.58 | ↑ 1.81% | ↑ 5.27% | ↓ -52% |
 MATIC | $5.3B | $0.5634 | ↑ 1.21% | ↓ -26% | ↓ -84% |
 LINK | $3.2B | $6.01 | ↓ -0.02% | ↑ 8.22% | ↓ -49% |
 NEAR | $1.1B | $1.19 | ↑ 0.06% | ↓ -6.51% | ↓ -64% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -26% | $17.60 | ↑ 1.44% | ↑ 112% | ↑ 55% |
| BITW | ↓ -49% | $11.09 | ↑ 0.32% | ↑ 106% | ↑ 49% |
| ETHE | ↓ -35% | $10.41 | ↑ 0.19% | ↑ 119% | ↑ 61% |
| BTCC | ↓ -0.08% | $4.75 | ↓ -0.42% | ↑ 57% | ↓ -0.85% |
News
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MARKET DATA
Coin Telegraph 1inch wallet buys $10M in ETH following a $3.7M profit streak in July The crypto wallet wallet linked to 1inch Investment Fund currently holds around $80 million in various digital assets.... |
CoinDesk Ethereum's Daily Transaction Fees Hits 8-Month Low of $2.8M Ethereum's daily total transaction fees fell to 1,719 ETH ($2.8 million) on Sunday, the lowest single-day total since Dec. 26. |
Decrypt.co Friend.tech Revenues Plummet 90% as Social App Hype Cools Some users are calling the end of Friend.tech, as Dune data shows user activity on the buzzy Base app has dried up dramatically this week. |
CoinDesk Robinhood Revealed to be Third-Largest Bitcoin Holder With $3B in BTC Robinhood transferred some 118,300 bitcoin to the wallet from several other smaller wallets over a three-month period |
DOSE OF DEFI
Decrypt.co SHIB Devs Reopen Ethereum Bridge to Layer-2 Network Shibarium Shibarium, a layer-2 scaling solution for the Shiba Inu blockchain, is now officially live after the network's rocky start this month. |
PRODUCT UPDATES AND PARTNERSHIPS
CoinDesk Solana-based Automation Startup Clockwork to Shut Down Solana-based automation project Clockwork’s developers are moving on from the venture-backed startup after finding it had “limited commercial upside.” |
Bitcoinist Western Union Embraces Ripple Blockchain And XRP Token For Enhanced Money Transactions Global money transfer powerhouse Western Union is boldly venturing into the dynamic and rapidly evolving realm of cryptocurrencies, marking a significant and st... |
CryptoPotato Shopify to Accept USDC Payments Via Solana Pay Integration Solana's native SOL, as well as the BONK token, will be added to the new payment option in the future. |
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